In my final essay I present a case against null hypothesis significance testing using p-values. I first present several – by far not all – drawbacks and misinterpretations regarding NHST and its results. Then I present an example of a potential problem with using p-values as a decision criterion. My letter ends with a very brief summary of several methods that can be presented next to- or used as alternatives for NHST. Methods include; confidence intervals, effect sizes, and bayesian statistics.
The goal of this overview is to make people aware of controversies in this part of scientific practice, and perhaps to inspire a new view on how we should be educating new scientists. By offering not only theories based on p-value significance testing, but also discuss its flaws and alternatives.